rija/ghost-backup repository overview

⁠ghost-backup

ghost-backup is a simple, automated, backup (and restore) Docker⁠ container for a Ghost⁠ blog. It supports Ghost configured with either sqlite or mysql/mariadb⁠.

By default it will create a backup of the ghost content files (images, themes, apps, config.js) and the database (actual posts) daily at 3am, keeping the most recent 30 backups.

⁠Quick Start (Ghost using sqlite)

Ghost uses sqlite by default, if you have not changed the configuration⁠ to mysql.

Create and run the ghost-backup container with the volumes from your Ghost data container:

docker run --name ghost-backup -d --volumes-from <your-data-container> bennetimo/ghost-backup

Where:

<your-data-container> is either your Ghost blog container, or a separate data-only container holding your blog files. Basically, wherever your blog content lives.

That's it! This will create and run a container named 'ghost-backup' which will create a backup of your Ghost database and content files under /backups every day at 3am.

See below sections for customizing the backup.

⁠Quick Start (Ghost using mysql/mariadb)

If your Ghost configuration⁠ is using mysql/mariadb then you just need to link in your mysql container when you create the backup container:

docker run --name ghost-backup -d --volumes-from <your-data-container> --link <your-mysql-container>:mysql bennetimo/ghost-backup

Where:

<your-data-container> is as above <your-mysql-container> is your mysql/mariadb database container for your blog

The following environment variables should be set on the mysql container. ghost-backup will pick them up automatically through container linking so it can talk to the database:

• MYSQL_USER
• MYSQL_PASSWORD
• MYSQL_DATABASE

⁠Perform a manual backup

docker exec ghost-backup backup

This will create an immediate backup. You should now have two archives created in the backup folder (/backups by default). One archive is the database, the other the ghost content files.

⁠Restore a backup

A backup is no good if it can't be restored :) You can do that in three ways:

⁠Interactive restore

You can launch an interactive backup menu using: docker exec -it ghost-backup restore -i This will display a menu with all of the available backup files. You can select which to restore by number or name.

⁠By date restore

You can also restore by date:

`docker exec ghost-backup restore -d yyyymmdd-hhmm This will restore the backup files (database and content) from yyyymmdd-hhmm, if found.

⁠By file restore

You can restore a given file mounted to the container:

docker exec ghost-backup restore -f /path/to/file/filename

Ghost restore will treat filenames containing 'db' as database files, and filenames containing 'ghost' as archive files.

⁠In place restore

By default the restore script will remove the ghost files from GHOST_LOCATION before restoring the archive, except for the database which is handled separately.

To restore without removing files first you can specificy the command argument capitalised, e.g. -I, -D, -F.

⁠Advanced Configuration

ghost-backup has a number of options which can be configured as you need.

For example, if you wanted to backup at 2AM to the location /some/dir/backups, storing 10 days of backups you would use:

docker run --name ghost-backup -d --volumes-from <your-data-container> -e "BACKUP_LOCATION=/some/dir/backups" -e "BACKUP_TIME=0 2 * * *" -e "BACKUPS_RETAIN_LIMIT=10" bennetimo/ghost-backup

⁠Disable backup types

By default, the backup will have a Ghost files archive, a DB archive, and purge any excess old backups specified by the BACKUPS_RETAIN_LIMIT. Each of these can be disabled with command arguments:

• -F //Do not include a ghost files archive
• -D //Do not include a DB archive
• -P //Do not purge old files

For example to perform a backup of just the DB with no purge:

docker exec ghost-backup backup -FP

⁠Backup to Dropbox

You can configure the backup location as you wish, which if used in conjunction with bennetimo/docker-dropbox⁠ will backup to a Dropbox⁠ folder.

To do this, you need to have a dropbox container running, linked to your account: docker run -d --name dropbox bennetimo/docker-dropbox

Then create your backup container using the Dropbox volume: docker run --name ghost-backup -d --volumes-from <your-data-container> --volumes-from <your-dropbox-container> -e "BACKUP_LOCATION=/root/Dropbox" bennetimo/ghost-backup

That's it. Now if your Dropbox container has been linked correctly to your account you'll have a backup of your blog added every day at 3am to your Dropbox.

⁠View the logs

docker logs ghost-backup Will display logs of all of backup runs (manual and automated) and restore operations. By default the log file is at: /var/log/ghost-backup.log

⁠Disabling automated backups

If you want to disable automated backups and just perform them manually as necessary, then you can stop the crontab installation by starting your container as:

docker run -d --name ghost-backup --volumes-from <your-data-container> -e "AUTOMATED_BACKUPS=false" ghost-backup

Now you can run: docker exec ghost-backup backup

Every time you want to take a backup. You can restore as normal (described above).

⁠Using ghost-backup for cloning an environment locally

You can use ghost-backup to create a local test environment for your blog, with all the posts and content.

1. Setup your dockerised ghost blog
2. Setup the ghost-backup container on your blog as described in this readme, with e.g. Dropbox as the backup location
3. Create a local dockerised ghost blog
4. Link and run the ghost-backup container restore script once to populate your local blog

⁠Other Info

When using sqlite, the backup/restore is handled using the command line shell⁠ of the online backup API⁠.

When using mysql/mariadb, the backup/restore is handled using mysqldump. You should use InnoDB tables for online backup⁠.

This container was inspired by wordpress-backup⁠